


burden worth carrying

by snailtooth



Category: Maximum Ride - James Patterson
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Autistic Fang (Maximum Ride), Best Friends, Fluff, Maximum "Max" Ride has ADHD, Nonbinary Fang (Maximum Ride), Other, Rated T for swearing, Romantic Gestures, jeb and fang hate each other, they watch naruto and play fight and talk shit out what more could you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-20 19:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30009807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snailtooth/pseuds/snailtooth
Summary: fang and max spend time together and fang decides they're going to do a big romantic gesture for max, just like they've seen happen in movies!
Relationships: Fang & Maximum "Max" Ride, Fang/Maximum "Max" Ride
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	burden worth carrying

When Fang got back from the bathroom Max’s feet were stretched out onto their side of the couch. They lifted her legs and sat down, placing her legs in their lap. It was a school night but there was no homework to be seen. Fang’s mom was pretty chill about having people over on school days, and she liked Max, so hanging out instead of doing work was a pretty common occurrence. Max had to lie to her dad about going to a study group, though. Little did that jerk know, she was actually spending the time being introduced to the greatest media of all time: Naruto. 

“Did I miss anything important?” Fang didn’t really need to ask, they knew what happened in the episode they were on, but they liked hearing Max talk. 

Max looked up from her phone, locking it and dropping it into her lap, “Um, yes. They fought a guy wearing cow print. I think he lost because the older guy used his special eye powers.”

Fang poured sarcasm into their voice, “Wow, seems like you’re paying really good attention.”

Max kicked them in the stomach. They only laughed, it didn’t really hurt. This seemed to make Max more angry.

“First of all, I have ADHD so fuck off. Second, I pretty much summarized it perfectly.”

Fang didn’t give in, even though she had already resorted to kicking, “Mhm, you sure did. ‘Guy wearing cow print’ was definitely his name.”

Max scowled, “I could kick your ass.”

Fang patted her leg and gave her a mischievous grin, “Then do it.”

“You-” Max stared at them for a second before huffing and pulling her legs out of their lap, closer to herself, “No. I’ve decided to spare you, out of kindness.”

Adorable. Fang smiled at her, turning in her direction and pulling their legs up close to their own chest, mimicking her pose. “Thank you, Oh Great Maximum, for allowing a poor fool like me to live another day.”

Max rolled her eyes and started playing along, “Anything for a treasured admirer.”

“ _Treasured admirer_? Did I get demoted from being your partner?”

“Yup. I was ridiculed for my inability to remember character names and then flirted with while I was mad, and according to the rules I have made up, that’s enough for a demotion.”

Fang knew there was no actual stock in her words, so it didn’t hurt their feelings. Two could play at that game, though. They screwed up their face in mock offense, “Ew, you thought I was flirting with you? Sounds gay.”

Max’s jaw dropped, Fang laughed quietly. “You were flirting with me! Babe, you were clearly flirting with me!”

Fang dipped their head to the side, laughed with their head bent, righted their head, and then cycled it again. 

“I can’t believe you’re stimming at a time like this!” Max moved over to Fang’s side of the couch and sat in front of them. She shoved their knee, “You were flirting with me!”

Fang shook their head, raising their shoulders towards their ears, “Was not.”

Max tackled them. She was definitely the better fighter, but she was also ticklish, which Fang used to their advantage. As they wrestled they parroted the same phrases at each other over and over, punctuated with laughter, “Flirting!” “ _Was not!_ ” “Flirting!” “ _Was not!_ ”

The shouting and cackling seemed to alert Fang’s mom that something was happening, and she entered the living room to see Fang and Max play fighting and getting dangerously close to hurting her coffee table.

Her voice sounded amused, “Fang? Doing okay in here?”

Max let go of her pin on Fang immediately, and she scrambled away from them, “Shit.” She smoothed her hair out as a reflex, even though she had recently buzzed it off, “This is so embarrassing, I’m so sorry.” She shot Fang a look that said _help me_ , but Fang wasn’t sure how to navigate the situation, so they just shrugged.

Fang’s mom laughed, “You are free to have fun here, it's okay.” She tapped her temple and pointed to Max, “I knew you were on the wrestling team, it’s good you’re getting practice in.”

“Oh my god.” Max shoved her face in her hands and bent over towards the floor, she kind of looked like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. Fang took that as their cue to butt in.

“Okay, okay, no messing with my girlfriend. Don’t you have a garden to look after?”

Fang’s mom shrugged, “I guess I could go tend to my plants so you two can come to blows over Naruto again.” 

Max groaned. Fang’s mom seemed to get the hint that Max wasn’t in the mood for teasing, she set a hand on her dirt covered apron, “My apologies Max, I just like to play around, I’ll head back outside so you two can have fun. No injuring my furniture or yourselves!”

With that, she left towards the back door, and Max uncovered her face. After a long awkward moment of silence she spoke up. “Your mom probably thinks I’m a delinquent now.”

Fang shook their head, “Nah, she’s had me as a child her whole life, it would take a lot more than that to earn you delinquent status.”

Max sighed, “If you say so.”

“I do.” Fang scooted over to where Max was and held out their arms. “Hug?”

She nodded and wrapped her arms around Fang. It was kind of hard to hug sitting down on the floor, but Fang didn’t care. They set their chin on Max’s shoulder and shut their eyes, drinking in the unspoken affection that Max communicated as she rubbed their back.

“I have to leave soon.”

Fang knew this, but it didn’t make it suck any less. They pulled away and pressed a quick kiss onto Max’s cheek, “After we finish this episode? I promise to not taunt you to the point of violence so we can actually get through it.”

“Deal.”

* * *

_-6:36 PM-_

**Max:** I’m home safe

**Me:** nice

 **Me:** sorry about my mom again

**Max:** Lmao it’s fine I just hope she doesn’t think I’m insane

**Me:** i have it on good authority that she doesn’t

 **Me:** i tell her a lot of very nice and cool things about you so she thinks you’re great

**Max:** What kind of nice and cool things?

**Me:** secret nice and cool things

**Max:** Smh. What’s the point of dating if u don’t constantly praise me for being amazing

**Me:** maybe the emotional connection, companionship, support, getting to borrow my cool clothes, the KISSING  
  
**Max:** Lol ur so gross 

**Max:** I do like ur clothes though, ur good at that stuff. I couldn’t dress my way out of a box

**Me:** maybe if it was a small box

**Max:** RUDE ASS

**Me:** that’s me <3  
  
**Max:** I have to actually do HW now since all we did was watch anime and embarrass ourselves and hug laying down

**Me:** you know you can say the word cuddle right? like that’s a word that is available to you, you don’t have to say “hug laying down”

**Max:** If I ever start using the word “cuddle” I want you to mercy kill me

**Me:** drama queen

**Max:** No u

**Me:** got me there

  
**Max:** Are you gonna tell me the nice stuff you said about me?

**Me:** my lips are sealed  
  


**Max:** Jerk

**Me:** maybe a little bit of a jerk

  
**Max:** Pbbbt

**Me:** did you just blow a raspberry at me over text?

**Max:** Yes. Also I’m gonna go do homework. Luv u

**Me:** good luck, love you too <3

  
  


Fang locked their phone and looked up at the ceiling above their bed. They’d put glow in the dark stars up there a long time ago, and somehow they were still holding on. They had to fight the urge to check their phone and see if Max had texted again, even though they’d just said goodbye. It was pretty lame of them, but they couldn’t help but get immediately lonely when Max wasn’t around. Fang had trouble connecting with most people, they just didn’t know how to decipher all of their mannerisms and intentions. It wasn’t like that with Max. She wore her heart and her motivations on her sleeve. Since the first time Fang had met her in freshman year, they had just… clicked. So, it was always so fulfilling to be around her. When she was gone life was duller.

Fang could never have imagined a future where Max would actually want to date them. 

They felt out of their element in a romantic relationship with her, partially because it was Max, and partially because they’d never dated anyone before. So, as they did after all important social interactions, Fang started to grade themself mentally on the text conversation they’d just had. Their flirting had gone over pretty well, and Max had said “lol” which was also good. But there was a hitch in the convo when Fang wouldn’t tell Max some complimentary things. They mentally scolded themself for being so awkward. They had deflected because it was easier. It felt too vulnerable and embarrassing to tell Max about observations that felt private. That they had told their mom that Max was good at explaining things, that they thought her bad driving was actually pretty endearing. That they had fallen a little more in love with her when she knew all of the words to Fergalicious. That when she closed her eyes and took deep breaths to calm herself down before a wrestling match she looked really beautiful. All of those things were too hard to just say. Fang wasn’t confident like that.

They felt the need to make it up to her.

In a moment of pure genius, Fang got an idea, and flung themself out of bed. They quickly stepped over to their bookshelf and found what they needed. A book of poetry by this Roman guy they’d learned about in class, Ovid. If they couldn’t figure out how to say things in their own words, they would use someone else’s.

* * *

“SHIT!” 

Fang fell to the ground with a harsh _thunk_ , knocking some of the air out of their lungs. They stayed splayed out in the grass for a minute, breathing hard. So, they weren’t great at hopping fences, whatever! They were a runner, not one of those pricks who did high jump. This was still going to be the perfect romantic gesture.

They gathered themself and stood up, brushing grass off of their back and straightening out the collared shirt they wore under a sweater. Max’s house looked the same as always. Two stories, fancy because of her dad’s mysteriously well paying job, a little scary. Fang picked out Max’s window and was sad to see the lights were off. Hopefully she wasn’t asleep. They strode across the large yard and pulled some pebbles they had taken from their mom’s garden out of their pocket. _Can pebbles break windows?_ God forbid the pebbles broke her window. Mr. Batchelder would probably never let Max see them again. After a moment of panic, Fang shrugged off the negative thought, they’d seen plenty of people do this in movies so it would probably be fine.

“Here goes nothing.”

Fang threw a pebble up at the second story window and missed by a long shot. They tried again, and again, and finally one of them bounced off the glass with a satisfying _ting_! They followed this up with a few more pebbles, which all made contact. Max was probably awake after all that, right? They were out of things to throw so they would have to start reciting anyways. 

“ _MAX_ , this is for you!”

Fang pulled a piece of notebook paper out of their pocket and turned on their phone’s flashlight. With the paper illuminated, they began to read it out in a loud confident voice, using the pronunciation they had practiced in Latin class.

“Sic erit; haeserunt tenues in corde sagittae, et possessa ferus pectora versat Amor!”

No response. They would have to push forward. They raised their voice.

“CEDIMUS, AN SUBITUM LUCTANDO ACCENDIMUS IGNEM?”

The light in Max’s room turned on. Fang cheered and nearly dropped their phone, but they quickly recovered so they could finish off the poem,

“CEDAMUS! LEVE FIT, QUOD BENE FERTUR, ONUS!”

Max’s window opened with a horrible scraping sound. Fang cringed, but forced themself to push away the sensory experience so they could grin up at Max. It only took a second to realize she was _not_ smiling back. She looked disgruntled as she scolded them in a stage whisper.

“Fang, what are you _doing_ here?”

Well, Max was nothing if not forthright. Fang fiddled with their phone to get their flashlight to turn off and they held up their piece of notebook paper, “Being romantic!” They were talking louder than Max, which only seemed to annoy her more.

“It’s fucking _MIDNIGHT_ , go home!”

Fang shook their head, grinning enough for the both of them, “I had to express my feelings! Earlier I didn’t tell you what I liked about you. I wanted to apologize. Did you hear the whole thing? I can do it agai-”

  
“Do NOT do it again.” 

Fang’s face fell slightly. Their intentions had been pure, they just wanted to make Max happy. In the past she always responded well when they went out of their way to try and actually talk about feelings. She seemed to notice their expression change, even in the dark, because she sighed and gave them a tired smile, “Sorry, thank you, really. I love you. But you’re gonna wake up Ari and my parents. You can’t just yell Latin at my window in the middle of the night.”

“C’mon it's supposed to be charming! I even did my makeup.” Fang had meticulously applied dark eyeshadow and lipstick so they would look as cool/dead/goth as possible. Those three things were pretty synonymous when it came to their style. They’d put on nice clothes too, so they struck a pose for Max.

She snorted, “Okay, yes. You look very pretty, _prince charming_.”

Fang’s chest swelled. Their girlfriend thought they looked _pretty_. They shook one of their hands next to their side, needing to get their happy energy about the compliment out. 

“Can I come up so we can stop yell-whispering at each other?”

Max looked relieved, “Yes, please yes. I don’t want to wake everybody up.”

Fang shot her two big thumbs up and headed for the tree that stood directly next to her house. They were glad they had chosen some stretchy pants as they scaled it and stepped onto the small roof that ran under the windows on the back of Max’s house. Max offered them a hand and helped them step through her window, but they still had a shaky landing.

As soon as they had safely gotten both of their feet on the ground, Max pulled Fang into a hug. Usually they were the same height, but in the sneakers Fang had chosen they were just a little bit taller. They, obviously, had to rub that in Max’s face,

“Hey there, short ass.”

Max backed out of the hug and lightly shoved Fang’s shoulder, “You don’t get to say that every time you’re wearing tall shoes. We’re the same height.”

“You have to take advantage of the small victories, babe.” Fang took a seat on Max’s bed. They grabbed one of her stuffed animals, a turtle, and started fiddling with it.

“Did I wake you up?”

Max nodded, taking a seat on her bed across from Fang, “Yeah, but it's cool. Well, mostly cool. Everyone else is having a deep sleep tonight, I guess.” She looked cute, in her giant pajama shirt and basketball shorts. She pointed to the turtle stuffed animal in Fang’s hands, “Ari gave me that the other day, her name is Shella.”

“Shella.” Fang patted the turtle on the head, “Cute name.”

Max nodded, tucking her legs underneath herself, “Ari is good at stuff like that.”

They sat there for a moment, both entranced by watching Fang trace their finger on the stitching on Shella’s back. Max tapped the bed in front of Fang to get their attention, 

“Can you translate the poem you read to me?”

Fang hadn’t been expecting that, but their whole purpose of showing up at Max’s house was to convey their feelings, so they nodded, “Yes definitely.”

They kept their eyes trained on Shella as they spoke, “So uh- well. It’s basically about how love can be painful and hard at first, if you’re not used to it. Or you don’t know how to do it, or you don’t feel worthy of it. But when you stop trying to fight against that love, it doesn’t hurt anymore. The last line translates to _‘a burden becomes light when carried willingly’_.” They shot a glance up at Max to make sure they were explaining well enough, she motioned for them to continue. “I just related to it because I’m new at all of this romance shit and I’m not very good at navigating it, you know? Sometimes being a relationship is scary for me because I’m not sure if I can do it right. Like just now was probably a good example of me being bad at navigating.” 

Fang laughed, feeling awkward with their own honesty. They looked up at their girlfriend. “Sorry about yelling at your window in the middle of the night. Does that make sense, though?”

Max nodded, not taking much time to gather her thoughts but coming up with smart things to say anyways, “I get you. The sentiment is... nice. You don’t have to worry about doing things ‘right’ with me, though. I don’t care about how other people’s relationships are. It just matters how we work things out.” She reached out and took Fang’s hand, “Plus, I think you’re a lot better at navigating than you think, but even if you weren’t, I wouldn’t care. I like you _and_ I love you.” She paused and screwed her eyebrows together, “I hope I’m not a burden, though.”

“Oh fuck, no that’s not what I meant!” Fang scrambled for words, “That’s not what I meant. I just mean that because of my own internal bullshit it's sometimes hard to feel like I deserve to be with you but, no. You’re not a burden. You’re the opposite of that. You’re a uh- blessing. I love you too.”

Max squeezed their hand, “That’s good to hear. Cheesy, but good to hear. We both deserve this, yeah? Love is good for both of us.”

Fang nodded and started to pull Max in for a hug. At that moment, a light came on in the stairwell outside of Max’s room. A man’s voice called out.

“Max? What was all that noise? Is someone in your room?”

Max quickly shoved Fang away from her and jumped off of her bed, “Nope! Just watching some Netflix!” She locked the door to her bedroom and turned to Fang, speaking in a whisper again, “Get out, dude! He’s gonna kill us!” 

Fang didn’t need to be told twice, they saluted Max then stumbled out of the window and across the roof towards the tree. As they started to climb down someone knocked loudly on Max’s door. They could hear a muffled conversation going on and, panicked, they started to fall down the tree more than they were climbing. 

Once they reached the ground, mostly unscathed, they started booking it across Max’s back lawn. They spared a glance backwards to see Max’s dad leaning out of the window, “MAX! WHO IS THAT? WHO GOES THERE?”

Max’s response was lost on them as they reached her back fence and hopped over it, they were unable to stop themself from laughing. Mr. Batchelder spoke like a fucking Skyrim NPC. They hit the ground running, charging down the sidewalk. They wanted to get as far away as possible in case Max’s Dad tried to follow after them. They were happy they had saved themself an ear full from him. The dude already hated Fang enough for being “alternative” and “unmotivated”, they didn’t need to add “sneaking into Max’s room” to the list. They hoped Max wasn’t getting chewed out too badly.  
  


Despite that worry, Fang couldn’t help but feel giddy. Something about their conversation with Max felt freeing. Max loved them, _liked_ them, thought they were pretty, didn’t care that her dad hated them, shit, she even understood their weird nerdy poem. Fang felt like they could run for a million years and never stop. So they did. They ran most of the way back to their house, until their face was flushed and they had to tug off their sweater. They loved Max, and she loved them. That made any issue worth overcoming, and any burden worth carrying.

**Author's Note:**

> here's the full translation for the poem:
> 
> Thus it will be; slender arrows are lodged in my heart,  
> and Love vexes the chest that it has seized  
> Shall I surrender or stir up the sudden flame by fighting it?  
> I will surrender - a burden becomes light when it is carried willingly.
> 
> i'm @ autisticfang on tumblr ! hit me up over there if you'd like ! thanks for reading, comments and kudos are appreciated !


End file.
